Vive la différence: The London Lesbian And Gay Film Festival On Tour

As Anna Dunwoodie, one of the festival programmers explains, you don’t have to be gay to enjoy the LLGFF’s touring repertoire, but sometimes it helps.

‘For a queer person, there’s something unique about being in a group of people who get the same jokes and understand the cultural references,’ she explains. ‘Ordinarily, when you go to the cinema, you’re most likely to be a minority.’

Having said that, Dunwoodie is the first to admit that the demographic is steadily changing. ‘We’ve seen a much broader section of people in recent years,’ she says, ‘though it’s often a case of straight people coming along with their gay friends. I suspect maybe ten or 15 years ago, it felt more like an exclusive club, but it doesn’t really feel like that any more.’

The increasing diversity of queer identities creates complications with the festival’s name, however. ‘The inclusion of transgendered and bisexual [communities] is an ongoing concern,’ says Dunwoodie.

‘It came up really strongly last year, because we’ve done lots of work to properly engage the transgendered community. Identity politics are so complicated, and how people like to refer to themselves changes so quickly. For now, at least, we’re sticking with the fact that it’s been the LLGFF for 22 years.’

Dunwoodie’s pick of this year’s touring programme is She’s A Boy I Knew (Sun Aug 3, 3pm), an autobiographical documentary in which Gwen Haworth records her transition towards acceptance of her female gender identity, and which Dunwoodie describes as ‘a very moving and beautifully made film, [which] makes you come out feeling good about yourself’.

Metro’s rather more impish festival favourite is another Canadian film, Otto; Or Up With Dead People (Aug 13, 8.45pm), by queer pioneer Bruce LaBruce. Gay zombie Otto’s existential crisis is solved by a chance meeting with radical film-maker Medea Yarn who instigates a queer zombie uprising, which she intends to capture in her political porno epic.